This is an experiment, as I've never live-streamed before. I'm planning to solve one set per week, ramping up in difficulty, until Set 8 which will be a proper speed-run. Set 1 aired on October 1st and Set 2 will air on October 15th (tomorrow!) at 2pm ET / 11am PT / 7pm BST.

For context the Cryptopals, once known as the Matasano Crypto Challenges, are an extraordinary set of exercises that have you build and break cryptosystems with attacks that did and do apply to real world implementations. I personally owe a lot to them, as they made me discover I liked building and breaking crypto, revealed that what I had was in fact a marketable skill, and for almost a year sat at the top of my CV.

I remember the thrill of playing them early on when unlocking each set required mailing the solutions to the previous one, and the satisfaction in being the first to complete Set 7 in a 30 hours run while at Recurse Center in Fall 2013. It feels only right to redo them now that I'm attending a new batch of Recurse. I really look forward to Set 8, which I haven't played yet.

The recordings will be on YouTube and the code on GitHub. Below you can see the recording of the first set. Instead of donations, I hope to raise money for the Internet Archive, in particular with the Set 8 speed-run; receipts can be sent to the gmail address filippo.donations to be tracked and thanked on-stream on a honour basis.